


Wasting Away Again

by Rsbry_Beret



Category: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)
Genre: :) I love these dumb idiots so much, Angst and Fluff, Confession, Drinking, Get Together, Kissing, M/M, Oops?, Pining, Tobin-centric, my friend made me do it blame her, tobin gets drunk and confesses his feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24159175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rsbry_Beret/pseuds/Rsbry_Beret
Summary: Tobin was drunk again. On a Tuesday. He hadn’t meant to, really... well. Maybe a little bit.(Rated T for swearing and drinking)
Relationships: Tobin Batra/Leif Donnelly, background Leif Donnelly/Joan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	Wasting Away Again

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett.
> 
> Thank my friend Eli for the prompt :) I adore her, she’s a legend, anyway..

Tobin was drunk again. On a Tuesday. He hadn’t meant to, really...

(that was a lie. At work that day, he had watched Joan call Leif into her office with a look on her face that told Tobin everything he needed to know. Tobin tried so hard to keep working, he really did, but his eyes kept finding Leif through the glass walls. At one point Tobin had glanced over and the two of them were gone. Leif showed up half an hour later with his hair neatly re-done and a red, angry scratch mark poking up his neck. Tobin tried not to notice.)

(He noticed, though. He really noticed.)

… but there he was, most of the way through a six pack of Corona, slumped limply on his living room carpet. Tobin slid down from where he was propped up against the couch, falling in slow motion until he was curled up in a ball on his side, beer can still clutched tightly in his grip. 

Thank goodness Leif was out with Joan tonight. Tobin didn’t want him to see him like this. 

(Leif had seen him at worse. Leif had seen Tobin at rock bottom, and Leif was there to take him home and sit with him in the bathtub because Tobin had wanted to take a shower but gave up before he even turned the water on. Leif hadn’t left when Tobin broke down and started sobbing into Leif’s stupid 100% cotton cardigan, even though the snot would probably ruin it. Leif had stayed there with him all night, and then called them both in sick the next day, and hadn’t even made Tobin talk about his feelings, about why he had felt the need to go get wasted instead of just talking to Leif, instead of telling him what had happened with- Leif had seen him at worse. Maybe Tobin just didn’t want to Leif, right then.)

Tobin stayed on the floor. He tilted his face down into the carpet, slightly grey in that gross way that all things once white end up being. He considered laughing for a moment, because it seemed like the sort of thing that a drunk person should do, but he decided against it, just pressed his face harder into the floor, eyes squeezed tightly shut. 

Maybe Leif would get home and find him and make him alphabet soup. Or something. Maybe Leif would see that Tobin was upset and instantly understand, the way Tobin always kind of hoped Leif would learn how to do, because they were best friends and he was pretty sure best friends were supposed to be able to read each other’s minds. Maybe Leif would get home and just hold him, tight and warm and solid. 

Maybe Leif would stay the night at Joan’s. Probably that would be what happened. 

The lock clicked, echoing through the apartment. Tobin didn’t bother getting up. If it was a burglar, they wouldn’t have a key, so it had to be-

Shit. 

Tobin turned his face to the side, opening his eyes to blurrily watch brown loafers stop in front of his head. 

“Tobes, dude, what the hell?” Leif sounded pissed. Which was weird, actually, because he had just got home from a date and usually he was in a good mood after he got some. 

And if he wasn’t happy, then Tobin would have expected him to sound disappointed at seeing Tobin laying on the ground, surrounded by empty cans. 

And if he wasn’t disappointed, then Tobin thought Leif would sound sad. Sad because he couldn’t… fix him, or whatever. 

But Leif sounded angry. Like, really fucking angry. Kylo Ren, kicking puppies, dealing with window salesmen level angry. 

At Tobin. Angry at Tobin.

Tobin considered the idea in his head for a second. Leif was mad at Tobin. Okay, why? It could be because he had drank, like, all the beer in the apartment. It could be because he had maybe, sort of, accidentally spilled some on the once-white carpet and not cleaned it up. It could be because Tobin had left his jacket on the floor, even though he knew Leif hated that. It could be because Tobin was a total wreck and ruining this awesome night that Leif had just had without him, and maybe Leif would decide that Tobin was too high-maintenance and kick him out of the apartment and decide to never talk to him again, and Tobin would have to quit his job out of shame and go work at Rite-Aid or 7-11 or Apple, or somewhere equally humiliating and beneath his pay grade.

“Sit up.” Tobin swayed upright, overshooting a little before leaning back against the couch for support. He looked blankly up at Leif, who had his arms crossed. He looked like Tobin’s mom the first time she had to pick him up from the police department. “Dude. What the fuck happened?”

Tobin shrugged. He hoped that Leif would get to the part where he kicked him out soon. He wasn’t sure if he could handle a whole speech beforehand. 

Leif huffed out a breath. He was still wearing his coat, weirdly enough, which meant that he had seen the living room light on and the tv off and his jacket on the floor and had known that Tobin was going to be here, and had decided to come and yell at him before he even took his coat off. Or his shoes. 

“Tobin. I’m gonna need a little more from you, buddy. What the actual fuck are you doing right now?”

Tobin glared at his knees, which were poking up awkwardly between his torso and the coffee table. Tobin had stupid knees. “Drinking.”

“No shit.” Leif sat down on the couch, like a civilized person or something. Tobin tried not to notice that he didn’t reach out to pet Tobins hair like he usually did when they sat like this. 

Tobin resolutely didn’t say anything else. His feet were stupid, too, trapped underneath the table. He could feel his socks, slipping off his feet just a little bit. Stupid socks. Stupid coffee table. Stupid Tobin, for drinking all the beer. 

“Tobin,” Leif said, still sounding mad.

Tobin twisted around at his hips painfully, feet still stuck beneath the table, and stared at Leif for half a second before looking away, at the modern art that Leif chose for the apartment because he said it gave the room ‘personality’.

“Sorry I drank all the beer,” Tobin said, and Leif deflated. Tobin watched, half in awe, as Leif melted completely into the pillows.

“Tobin,” Leif repeated, then again, “Tobin. I’m not mad that you drank the beer. Well, I am, but… I’m mad because you got crazy drunk instead of just talking to me about whatever ridiculous thing you let get under your skin this time. I’m mad because I don’t know what the ridiculous thing is.”

Which, actually, was a pretty insensitive way of phrasing that, and Tobin opened his mouth to tell Leif that but what he ended up saying was “I’m in love with you.”

Leif froze. Tobin felt like maybe he should, too, but then he realized that he’d already said the words, and regretting saying them wasn’t going to make them un-say themselves. 

Hahah. ‘Un-say’. National spelling bee champ, right here. 

“You what?” Leif asked, sitting upright, coat left hanging half-on and half-off of his arms. Tobin stayed facing him, even though it hurt his neck and his side and his thighs, a little bit. 

Tobin considered the empty beer cans on the carpet. Tobin considered how often he drank, and how high his tolerance was, and the fact that when he felt miserable he tended to get dramatic when he had an excuse, and Tobin came to the unpleasant conclusion that he probably wasn’t as drunk as he was pretending to be. That he probably just wanted a good reason to lay on the floor. 

“I love you, bro. Full homo. In love with you.” Now that he’d said the words, he couldn’t get them to stop. “Since, like, junior year of Highschool probably, because I remember you walked into advanced statistics and your stupid tie matched your socks and I heard fucking… Mary Lawrence started giggling from the third row and I was so ready to just punch her, you have no idea, dude.” Tobin inhaled, taking in a deep breath. 

“Because first year of college, you passed out during your computer science midterms and the professor knew to call my cell phone, because apparently you had sharpied my number on your arm in case that happened.

“Because when I brought that fucking ferret to work on Take Your Kid To Work day, you insisted on going into Joans office with me, even though you didn’t even know I was gonna do it, because you knew that it’d look less bad if you were in on it. 

“And because when my mom… yeah, you let me ruin your stupid January cardigan, and-“

Leif bent over and kissed Tobin on the forehead. It looked like an insanely uncomfortable way to bend, and Tobin’s suspicions were confirmed when Leif pulled back immediately and winced. Tobin stopped talking anyway, before pushing himself out from under the coffee table and onto the couch beside him. 

Tobin looked at Leif. Leif looked at Tobin and grinned wide. “You know which cardigan I wear each month?”

That was… a weird thing to focus on, considering everything Tobin had just said. 

“Yeah?” 

Leif swayed forward and kissed Tobin again, this time on the corner of his mouth. 

“Woah woa- wait, okay.” Tobin set his hand against Leif’s chest to push him lightly away, not bothering to remove his hand afterwards. “Not that I’m not totally on board with whatever’s happening here but first of all- what is happening and second of all, aren’t you dating Joan? Didn’t you literally just get back from a date with Joan?” 

Leif squinted. “Me and Joan aren’t dating. When I said I had a business meeting with her, I actually meant, like… a business meeting.”

Tobin made a noise deep in the back of his throat, like he was thinking about something. He wasn’t really thinking about much of anything. He was more than a little confused. “You do have sex, though?”

Leif flushed and looked away for a moment before meeting his eyes again. “I mean- yeah, we have sex. But it’s notexclusive. She’s got her thing with Ava and I…” He trailed off. 

Which, okay, that’s a lot of information at once, but more importantly- “and you…?”

Leif gulped, and Tobin could almost feel it from where he was touching his chest. “And I’m in love with you.” He glanced down at Tobin’s lips, then up again. “Full homo.”

“Oh. Cool.” Tobin jolted forward at full speed, slamming into Leif and basically attacking him with his mouth, sloppy and gross and honestly, not really that attractively. Tobin's hand was still trapped between them, and Leif was too off-guard to do much in the way of response, but it wasn’t about kissing, really. It was about saying I’m here, I’m here, I love you too and I’m here.

Tobin pulled away as quickly as he had pushed forward. “Holy shit, I’m kissing Leif Donnelly.”

“Is that what that was?” Leif quipped wryly, or in a tone of voice that would have been wry if his glasses weren’t crooked and his cheeks weren’t bright red. 

“I know that was an insult but I’m too happy to care. Holy fucking shit, I just kissed Leif Donnelly.” Tobin beamed at Leif, with his crooked glasses and all. “Seventh-grade-Tobin is crying tears of joy right now. Honestly, current-Tobin might start, too.”

“I thought you said eleventh grade?” Leif reached back to flatten down his hair. It poofed back up again as soon as he moved his hand away. 

“No, dude, I fell in love with you in eleventh grade. I’ve wanted to jump your bones since I knew what it meant.” Leif blushed again. “I don’t really want to share you, though.”

Leif smiles awkwardly. God, Tobin had kissed him. “That’s okay. I don’t really want to either.”

Tobin leaned forward, resting his head in the crook of Leif’s neck and smiling. “It’s because I’m way hotter than Joan. I’m warning you now, man, once you get a taste of Tobin everyone else will be ruined for you.”

Tobin heard Leif let out a soft laugh. “Honestly, Tobes, I think they already are. Wait, that didn’t make much sense, I meant- yeah, I agree with you, you’re hotter than Joan.”

Tobin started laughing, quietly at first and then louder, into Leif’s February cardigan. After some grumbling Leif started laughing too, before leaning back on the couch and letting Tobin rest on top of him. 

“You totally still owe me more beer, though.”

Tobin shut him up. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Whoo boy!!! Finally back on some good happy lovin times!! *cue The Boys Are Back from hsmsy* 
> 
> Leave a comment in exchange for a virtual butterfly kiss :) stay hydrated you lovely fellas


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